Morning all.
I've spent most of it doing notes for police training tomorrow so I'm jolly well going to have a break now.
and soup du Castle available, avec les rolls shaped like cannons.
No, Bishops, cannons, not canons. You cannot have a roll shaped like Canon Sophie from the neighbouring Diocese! Tsk! 
CatherineMacauley, you've reminded me that some people here might not have a clue about the basics of autism and friendship, and others might know a bit, but few will know a lot about it. I agree that such terms of friendship are therefore very important to understand and respect, but it's also absolutely vital that I understand and respect other people's terms of friendship too, really. As much as I can, anyway. Compromise is always a good thing. Every person is different, so what follows is about me rather than 'true for everyone on the autism spectrum'. People vary a little.
Things I try to compensate for ...not having an immediate clue who's who. And not always having the half hour it takes my brain to find the info on them, alas. So I'll tend to treat everyone more or less the same. That might seem rude and not personalised enough, which is a problem 
but it's the best compromise I can think of. I do know the info...but it honestly takes ages for my brain to trek across the teetering wiring it's created to get each bit of info... bring it back... put it into place, then go teetering off to get the next fact and repeat the process, etc. Very hard work, but always worth it when I have the time, as I love learning about people and sharing their lives. It helps if people repeat very important things they said a couple of days ago. Others might remember instantly, but I might be struggling..."Oh heck, what did person X say happened to them...was it person X? Suppose I get it wrong?!"
Things that may alarm people: Me being very literal. My brain only sees the pictures of something. So if people use metaphors, idioms etc, I can find it really strange. "He was wet behind the ears" apparently doesn't mean that his ears need drying, for example 
My reaction might be to find it funny, and then people think I might be being sarcastic or laughing at them rudely. But I'm not . I just haven't got a clue what we're talking about. I only see the mental picture it creates, not the hidden meaning. I go off and look it up myself - people don't have to spend their time explaining - but it can take me time. Some words I can't understand at all because you can't draw them. No, really. Not a clue what they mean.
Things that may annoy people: I can go on and on about a topic, downloading all the info in my brain at people. I have to hope that people will be clear and say, "please don't give us more than one paragraph a week!", or that they will just ignore it and read the more interesting stuff instead. It's an automatic thing.
So, being friends with me ends up being different. Not worse, just different. I can do a lot to help myself, but sometimes I will get stuff wrong/be over-literal/not get the social wording stuff right. The knack is not to take it personally.